Johnson refuses to be drawn on whether he regrets his Partygate apology to Queen

Boris Johnson has refused to say whether he regrets apologising to the Queen for a party in Downing Street on the eve of Prince Philip's funeral.

- KATE DEVLIN

In an interview with ITV, the former prime minister made clear that he regretted his public apology for the Partygate scandal. But he would not be drawn on his conversations with the former monarch.

The four candidates in the current Tory leadership contest have been urged to condemn his remarks, as he was accused of insulting "everyone who lost family members" during the Covid pandemic. In his new memoir Unleashed, Mr Johnson said he made the "mistake" of issuing "pathetic" and "grovelling" apologies over the scandal which "made it look as though we were far more culpable than we were".

Last year a damning report by a cross-party group of MPs found he deliberately misled parliament over Partygate. In a sensational verdict, the Commons privileges committee said they would have recommended a 90-day suspension had Mr Johnson not already quit as an MP. The committee went on to recommend the former PM be stripped of his Commons pass.